Sweet Summertime

It feels like summer is really here for me. I worked my last day at the garden center on Friday and had a nice weekend culminating in the first free concert of the summer last night. Today I've been catching up on house things, laundry and such, and next on my list is a visit to my neglected sewing room. I have many projects to complete, so that is on my agenda for the rest of the summer. I probably should be looking for another job, but I think I'll just keep an eye on the postings for the school district to see if there's anything there I'd like to switch too. The nice thing about my school job is that I continue to get paid monthly throughout the summer whether I'm working or not. One of my coworkers retired this spring so that she could spend more time with her grandkids. I hope that will be me someday; retirement won't come a day too soon for me. Unfortunately, I think I'm looking at many more years before that happens. Anyway, I made her this little quilt and had everyone at school sign the back. She seemed to really like it and I thought it was pretty summery and a little retro too.

I have been sewing!

Despite the title of my blog, I don't sew many days, only some days. I'm known for going in spurts where I sew like crazy and then take a break and not get any sewing done for quite some time. Recently there were a couple of silent auctions that I wanted to donate quilts for, so I was really busy for awhile working on projects. I made this guitar themed quilt for TB's marching band silent auction. One of my good friends, also a quilter, won the bid. I told her I was happy it went to a good home. The other auction was to raise funds for the kid's summer trips at church. I donated a wall quilt, a table runner, and a fleece blanket. I knew all of the people that got those projects also, so that made me feel good. I'm kicking myself for not taking pictures of them before I dropped them off. I really loved the wall quilt I made, it was hard to part with. I'm a sucker for those bags of scraps from the quilt shop I frequent. I really hit the jackpot with one of the bags, it contained a few partially made blocks and lots of additional scraps from the same fabrics. I finished off four blocks for the wall quilt and also got a miniature quilt for myself. It was mostly Kansas Troubles fabric which I have a new appreciation for now. Here's the guitar quilt and I'll take a picture of the mini and get it up another day. Incidentally, the colors didn't photograph especially well, I think it looked a lot better in person.

More Quilts

Here's some more of the beautiful quilts from the show I went to on Saturday. By the way, none of these are mine, I just thought they were worth sharing. The first one below is the same pattern from the block of the month group I just finished (without using the blocks). She did an excellent job on the center applique piece. It is for a child's bed, not something I would do, but it's beautiful. I still haven't gotten any quilting of my own done, but we have a little break from school coming up, so I'll have to then. This is the last day of school we have this week, it will be so nice to have Thursday and Friday off. The weather is STILL supposed to be snowy and cold on Thurs. and Fri. , so perfect days to be in the sewing room. It's supposed to be nice on the weekend, so DH is taking the weekend off from work so we can get some projects done around the house. Mostly outside actually, a few loads of leaves I'm sure, some repairs, etc. I hope it will happen. I've really been feeling in need of a few days off, it hasn't been the best of weeks. One of those where I need a money tree to shake!By the way, can you believe this spiral pieced quilt. It was amazing to look at the planning that must have gone into it. Notice that the fabric matches from the center to the outside despite all of the piecing around it. Wow!

Quilts, Snow, and more

Wow, it's been almost two weeks since my last blog entry. More of the same old, same old around here for the most part. Over the weekend I took in our local quilt show and had a nice lunch with my girlfriends afterward. It was either that or drive and hour to sit in a 30 degree wind and maybe watch TB play football. I felt a little guilty about not going to his game, but he said he didn't care and it was nice to get out with the girls. He ended up playing a lot and having his only reception of the season, so I was sorry to miss that. He also got tackled hard and hit in the helmet so hard he was dizzy, so it's good I wasn't there for that. I might have embarrassed him by asking if he was okay or something. I woke up this morning to see the ground white with snow. It was very depressing to me, I certainly hope some nice fall days return or it's going to be a very long winter. Thought I'd post some of the quilts from the show, it was very inspiring. I hope to make a fall themed wall hanging for over the fireplace soon. I'm thinking about a version of one of the leaf quilts I saw. I took a lot of pictures, so I'll put up some more in a day or so.

Flowers

Here's a couple of pictures of the flowers on my patio. We have a concrete patio out the back of our house with this brick wall all the way around. It makes for a nice place for flower boxes and pots. They have really done well this summer. Usually by now they are looking pretty dead. I guess starting out with some better fertilized soil and the right amount of rain and sunshine has made the difference. I've just never had geraniums that looked like these-kinda cool. I planted more impatiens this year since they do better in the shade than the petunias, but both are doing well, so it was a surprise.

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It will be kind of a busy day today. I'm getting together with my friends to do some sewing this morning. Haven't decided if I'll actually sew or just bring along some cutting and handwork projects. I have to be to work at noon and everyone else has the whole day, so by the time I get there I won't have a ton of time. My new machine is great, but it's heavy and not very portable, so I don't know if I want to drag it along. TB has his first home football game tonight, so I hope the weather will hold. It's been really nice so far this week and seems nice this morning. After the game we'll get together at a friends house, mostly the same group from this morning plus husbands. It's great to have friends. It will also be nice to have the first week of school done. It's had it's ups and downs, but overall been okay.

Finally Something Quilty

As I mentioned, I went to several quilt shops on Friday. I didn't get much in the way of new things, but I did find a couple of pieces of fabric and a new book. I went with my friends to our Block of the Month club first, so I thought I'd put a picture of this month's block and some of the other things I found.
Here's this month's block, it's from a book called "Wildflower Sampler". The fabrics this year are all batiks and I'm really enjoying the colors. The quilt has a large appliqued piece of a bunch of flowers in the center. I haven't done much with that yet. Here are the rest of the blocks on my design wall in my sewing room. After my experience with last year's BOM, I swore I wouldn't make any mistakes on the blocks, but that went out the window the first month. This month the center block is put together wrong ( the greens should all line up) and I cut the blue blocks with the wrong angle. Oh well, it will all look okay when it's put together.


I found a neat pattern book at the shop in Decorah. It's for making quilts with hexagon blocks. I used the ruler making the block above, but it will be right for these blocks. I got my first Jellyroll (roll of 2 1/2 in. fabric strips) last summer and I'm going to use a pattern from this book to make something from it. I love the look of the 30's style fabrics, so I can't wait to get started on it.By the way I was inspired to post my block of the month by Mrs. Quilty, who has a new blog and happened by to leave some comments for me the other day. Stop over an see her blog if you have a chance.

My Trip to "The Cities"

True Minnesotans usually refer to the Minneapolis-St. Paul area as "The Cities" and that's where I had some summer highlights a couple of weeks ago. SD was doing her freshmen orientation for college and since I've been through it all before with CS, I decided to skip most of the parent stuff and head off on my own. While she was having her orientation, I visited several prime locations, some new for me and some that I had visited in the past. Pictured above is the Weisman Art Museum, a wacky building with some wacky art inside. I don't "get" a lot of it. To me, a picture of a cardboard box with other pictures glued onto it (some upside down) isn't really art. Neither is a Petunia that is supposedly a new life form because some scientist put some of his own DNA in it. (An entire room was devoted to this "Etunia") It has a fun gift shop though where I bought a couple of buttons for my daughter's collection that she puts on her purse. On the right, there is a picture up the river where you can see the wreckage of the 35W bridge laid out and the new bridge in the background. I guess the new bridge lights up in different colors at night, but haven't seen that yet.Here's a picture of the stone arch bridge. "A gently S-curving bridge was built by railway baron James J. Hill in 1883 to speed his trains across the Mississippi River. Now beautifully restored, the bridge provides serene transit for walkers, joggers and anybody who wants the best possible view of St. Anthony Falls, whose churning power first made Minneapolis a milling capital." You can see more of the Falls in the picture looking towards downtown. Lastly here is a picture of the Prospect Part Water Tower. It was referred to as a "witch's hat" water tower and was built in 1913 on the highest natural land area in Minneapolis. My son goes by it on the bus every day on his way to work and wondered what it was, so we ventured by while I was there.

It helped that the weather was perfect while I was there. CS and I went and saw the movie UP and then ate at an outdoor restaurant and walked in the St. Anthony Falls area that evening. I thought while I was there that it might be my only vacation this summer and even though it was only a couple of days, it was a lot of fun and I enjoyed spending the time with my kids too. I almost forgot because I don't have pictures, but I also went to Glad Creations, a famous Minneapolis quilt shop and Engebritson's, a Scandinavian shop of epic proportions. I bought a little something at both shops, but could have spent a lot of money if I had it.

A Lost Art

Here are some of the pretty doilies and embroidered pieces I was mentioning the other day. I know they are probably a little cutesy for some, but I like them and I always think of all the hours of work that was put into them. It kills me to see pieces like these at garage sales or flea markets for a couple of dollars. These were made by my grandmothers and great aunts, now deceased. I know they would be happy that I am enjoying them all these years after they were made. I hope someone will still be enjoying and using the quilts I've made 50 or 100 years from now!
























By the way, I realize this is not a totally lost art. There are some people out there still embroidering and crocheting. But, not many would create a piece like this lady below. Lots of fine detail embroidery, crocheted lace around the outside, some kind of open work on the dress that I have no idea how they did. All on something that measures 7 x 10 inches, and there's another mirror image one that you can see in my previous post, Wow!

What I've been doing...

Here's a wall hanging quilt I made for one of my friends for her 40th birthday. She has also been my kids' piano teacher, so it was partly for that reason also. Several of us got together for dinner at a nice restaurant last night and then went to another friends home afterward for cake and ice cream. It was a fun evening and she liked the quilt despite it's flaws. I have some leftover pieces I'm going to try to work into something for myself today. I used the same pattern basically that I used for this runner. It's called disappearing nine-patch and it's really easy. Then I added the half square triangles around the edge. If you're not a quilter, you would be surprised to know that I didn't cut out a single triangle or a single rectangle or a single square smaller than 4" for this quilt. It's all in the magic of planned seams. I didn't actually have a pattern for this one, just a picture to go by, so not everything turned out perfect and since I finished it 45 minutes before the party, that's how it had to be.

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It's been nice to have some good weather this week and we're down to just a few piles of snow in the yard. TB apparently has made the baseball team, there were no cuts at his level since there were a few boys that didn't go out this year. CS has been on break all week, not doing a whole lot but catching up on rest and relaxation. Now that I can see the yard again I've been thinking about what a lot of yard work I'll have to do before SD's graduation party. Her 18th birthday is June 15th, so I've been thinking about combining the two into one party. We only have 4 days of school before our spring break, so I'm anxiously awaiting that and I hope I can catch up on some things then.

Quilt Rack

Here's a couple of shots of the quilt rack DH made for me. It's kind of a prototype for the ones he's making for the silent auction at church. I really like how it turned out. It has a notch in the shelf on top, so I could put some plates or what-not up there to display. I've asked my friends for dimensions of quilt racks they might like to bid on. If they wanted one anyway, I thought the money just as well go for a good cause. Several of the kids from church, mine included are raising fund for a trip to a national youth gathering for our church that will be held in New Orleans in July. DH is going along as a chaperone, so that will leave me home alone. Providing of course that CS finds himself a summer job. It's a rather expensive trip, so I hope that this auction will be a success. Looking at this picture, it reminds me that you should sew a straight seam when attaching borders!

Tide Stemmed and Quilt Finished!

The stream of water in the basement has mostly stopped. DH tore apart the wall yesterday to reveal a large floor to ceiling crack. Why we never did this before is a good question, but it's done now. He plans to chisel out the crack and fill it with a special cement patch and hopefully that will remedy the situation without having to dig up my bushes and the sidewalk outside. He assures me that he won't cause the entire wall to cave in!

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I finished the wall hanging that I'm planning to donate to the silent auction for this Friday night. I'm making another one just like it to have for myself, but I still have all of the quilting and binding to do on that one. I still hope to have it done by Valentine's day. This auction is to support some walkers for a breast cancer event. Then in March there are silent auctions for our church youth and the marching band, so I'll be busy with projects. DH has also made one quilt rack and plans to make some more, so I'll post a picture of that too.

Strip Twist Quilt

Here's the Strip Twist quilt I have been working on. I got the pattern from Bonnie Hunter's Quiltville site. She mentioned this quilt on her blog (Jan. 29th) as a Superbowl project. I watched the Superbowl, but worked on it earlier in the week and I had it about finished by game time. It went together really easily and it was fun to play around with the squares to get them in a way I liked. It was a little outside the box for me, but I really like how it turned out. I stayed away from colors I don't usually like in quilts-yellow, orange, and purple-and concentrated on the reds, blues, and greens I have the most of. By the end I ran out of light prints to use, so I could use some more of that in my stash. I was thinking about donating it to the silent auction at church, but when I got done it had so many pieces from quilts I've made in the past that I don't think I can part with it. It will be kind of a memory quilt. Tomorrow when we have our block of the month class, I'm going to pick out something for a strip of border about 5 inches all the way around. I'm thinking about a dark Kansas Troubles print. I still haven't gotten the outside border done on last year's block of the month, so I should get going on that too.

Belated Happy Groundhog Day!

There's something I like about Groundhog Day. It's a little strange I know, but I get a little excited about it. DH and I watched the "Groundhog Day" movie last night, it's one of my favorites too. Maybe it has something to do with the feeling that even though we will always have at least 6 more weeks of winter, at least it seems like Spring is getting closer. We had some nicer weather this last weekend with sunshine and temps above freezing for the first time this year. Today, however, it was back to the deep freeze with windchills in the -20 range. Anyway, I'm starting to feel like the worst is over where winter is concerned. I know I've been dwelling on the weather a bit lately, but it has been soooo bad this year that I can't help it.

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I decided that it's New Year's resolution update time. I admit that I've failed in all or in part in all of my resolutions. Why do I even bother? Looking back I realized that sewing more wasn't even one of my resolutions. That I've been doing a lot better on. I completed another quilt top this week and just have to add the outer sashing. I promise to post a picture soon.

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It was a pretty busy day today with a training at work this morning, my regular hours this afternoon, a school board input session after work and an orchestra concert tonight. At work this afternoon, a little guy I often work with told me I looked sick and asked if I slept well the night before. I admitted I wasn't feeling the greatest and went to check my temp in the nurse's office out of curiosity. I was 100.5, so I took some ibuprofen and I hope I'll be able to fight off whatever it was. I must have looked pretty bad today for a third grader to notice, I'll have to spend a little more time on hair and make-up tomorrow. :)

Finished projects

Like I mentioned last week, I spent most of the day on Friday at a sewing get-together with a couple of friends. We take our sewing machines and supplies over to our church where we can spread out, work part of the day, go for lunch, and come back and finish up without having to worry about leaving everything out. I worked on what I'm calling the Cardinal Quilt the entire day. I had worked on it a lot before Christmas, but it took me the whole day to cut and sew the last two rows of blocks and the dark purple border. On Saturday I finished up the borders and pieced the back, so it's ready to be quilted once I get it put together with the batting. Last night I made the table runner. It was a fun pattern I saw online. I used a charm square pack, sewed into two nine patch blocks and then cut in half from top to bottom and side to side. I ended up with 8 smaller blocks to randomly sew together. I was complaining Friday that I'm not good at "random". My cardinal quilt was supposed to have the printed blocks in a random pattern, but I ended up with three in a row down the middle, but I'm hoping no one but me will notice. The cardinal quilt is for CS, so his bed looks nice when he's not home. Ha. It turned out pretty large for a twin bed, so I think he'll be able to use it for a larger bed too. Hopefully he'll appreciate it some day. The runner is for a silent auction we're having at church. It's to raise funds for the summer youth trip my younger two and my husband are going on in July. My idea with naming my blog "Sew Many Days" was that I would have projects like this to show quite often. Hopefully it won't be so long before the next one.

Block of the Month Progress

Here's the progress on my last year's block of the month. For those quilters who are interested, its the WinterBerry fabric line from Maywood Studios. The patterns are created using templates from Marti Michele (set B). This was definitely a learning experience for me. Lots of little triangles, lots of margin for error, lots of errors actually. I also got my new machine mid-year, so that didn't help any. All in all though, I'm happy with how it turned out. It took a lot of creativity to make everything square, so my most important lesson was how important accuracy is. I made the first block for this year in a big hurry and it didn't turn out too well. After futzing so much with this quilt, I decided to start over and do it right from the start this time. I still have the outer borders to add, but it seems that a sewing room reorganization is in order first, so it may take awhile. Now off to the dentist!

Lovely Fall Day

It is a beautiful day here today. We got some much needed rain last night, so everything seems very crisp and clean and the sky is a brilliant blue. I hope this nice weather will hold for the homecoming game Friday night. TB's marching band puts on a special show after the game. College son is coming home for the weekend for the first time since going back to school. The dress turned out good enough for Senior Daughter to wear, so I am very happy about that. It may be awhile before I tackle something like that again. I'm anxious to have the time to get back to some quilting. I have many projects waiting for me and I would especially like to make something for fall. I finished a wall-hanging this summer that I am rather proud of, there are quite a few errors as usual, but it's finished. It took me a long time as usual. I'm a firm subscriber to the "Better finished than perfect" philosophy. It was intended as a spring/Easter wall-hanging. I finally finished it in the middle of summer ( a couple of years after the Easter in question). I decided to hang it up for awhile anyway. I think I will take it down today and bring out my Fall decorations. I was inspired by Joan and her beautiful Fall decor. Usually it nears Halloween before I get things out. Ha

Pot Holders

Here are the pot-holders I made this afternoon. They are made with the Minnesota shop-hop fabric I got earlier this month. I'm going to give one each to my friends when we go out to Applebee's to celebrate our birthdays. I'll probably put a hand towel in the bag too.

What should I do with this ugly crooked thing?

Here's a project I've been working on for the last couple of days. The problem is, that I used all leftovers and scraps and consequently have nothing left matching. Anyone out there have any ideas? I thought about a two color border, but I'm not wild about the choices I have. I also thought about setting in on point with the red in the corners and then adding a green border. Of course I could take it to a quilt shop and buy something that matches better, but then it wouldn't be free stuff from my stash and that was kind of the point.

First Post

Here it is, my very first blog post!! I've been thinking about creating a blog for some time and decided there's no time like the present. I'll probably be blogging mostly about family, my hobby, quilting, and maybe some other items of interest. I'm sure there will be a steep learning curve until I get to the polished looking blog I want. So here goes....

Today one of my quilting friends and I went to our block of the month class and stayed for the little informational session the shop has. Four of us have been going to this class and only have two blocks left until we start again in the fall. It has been a fun way to get at least a little sewing done every month. We usually go out for breakfast after the class, so of course that is fun too. Today was the first time we stayed at the "VIP" session, so we both got a little gift and I got an extra fat quarter for showing the new bag I just made. Maybe I'll try to post a picture of it! It is also the opening day of the Minnesota Quilt Shop Hop, so I got some of the special MN fabric. There are 12 or 13 stores in our region that each are giving away a quilt block and fat quarter with $15 purchase, so we may make another run at some stores next week.